Students: Thomas Britt, Mitchell Howard, Andrew Hwang, Yohsuke Kobayashi, Jennifer Lu, Carly Lyons, Akhtar Masood, and Jae Suh
Client: Climate Earth
Advisor: Chien-Ming Chen
There is currently no standardized system of comparing production companies on their business and environmental practices. In an effort to fill this gap, this research project creates a standard called the eco-efficiency frontier on which to compare company’s progress towards creating more goods and services while using fewer resources and creating less waste – in other words, being eco-efficient. We examine ten food manufacturing companies over the time span of three years to gauge their level of efficiency in comparison to each other. We then examine other financial information from all the companies to draw potential relationships between company operation processes and eco-efficiency scores. Our project yields interesting results and suggests that beverage companies may be more eco-efficient than other types of food manufacturing companies. Our eco-efficiency model has the potential to be applied to many different industries using different financial variables and can bring to light many interesting relationships and information that can be used to help all companies reach eco-efficiency.